


Exception

by Anonymous



Category: Prime Suspect (UK), The Fall (TV 2013)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2020-11-25 15:08:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20914109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Stella and Jane's relationship throughout the years.





	1. Chapter 1

Stella drags her carry-on behind her as she winds through the near-deserted corridors of Heathrow airport. It’s after midnight and the domestic arrivals are half-asleep, shops closed for the night, ticket counters abandoned.

It had been a long last day in Belfast putting the Spector case to rest. It had been a long month in Belfast full stop. And she still had another hour in the back of a cab before she could expect to see her front door.

The image of her empty flat and its empty bed flashed in her mind, lukewarm and unappealing. Impulsively, she dug her mobile out of her purse and dialed.

“Stella?” a familiar voice, groggy with sleep, answered.

“Hi. Sorry to wake you,” she said, toying with the end of her hair in a way she hadn’t since she was a girl. She notices split ends. “I just got back. Would you mind if I came over tonight?”

“Do I ever mind?”

*****

A cup of piss poor coffee, a rental car, and a two hour drive later, Stella is standing before the door of a well-appointed cottage, fumbling for her keys in the dark. Before she can slide the key into the lock, the door opens to reveal a concerned Jane in bathrobe and slippers.

Jane wraps her in her arms and holds her tightly, more tightly than Stella lets anyone else hold her. “That was a hard one, wasn’t it?” she tells her, DSI to DSI.

“It was,” is all she allows herself to say. Jane will wring the truth out of her—and Stella will let her—soon enough. But tonight she is too tired.

“You look like shit.”

“Nice to see you, too, Jane.” She knows how she looks. She caught her reflection under the harsh fluorescents of the Heathrow washroom, her skin ashy, her golden hair dulled to straw.

“You’ve been living off whiskey and coffee and little else,” Jane clucks. “Bad coffee and good whiskey if I know you. You want tea?”

Stella shakes her head and walks into the bedroom, kicking off her heels and throwing her coat over an armchair. She begins to unbutton her blouse, but feels Jane press up behind her, feels her fingers brush her hand aside.

“Let me do that,” Jane whispers into her ear, dipping to nip at her collarbone.

Stella closes her eyes as Jane undresses her with tender, careful hands. There is real love in those hands, wrinkled with arthritis, as covered in calluses and gunshot residue as her own. Jane removes her shirt and helps her step out of her skirt, unhooks her bra and massages the red marks under her breasts where the underwire has dug into her skin. She retrieves a cotton tank top from the drawer Stella keeps at the cottage in Rye and slides it over Stella’s shoulders.

Stella slips beneath soft jersey sheets and pulls the fluffy down comforter up to her chin. It smells of the sea and home and Jane. There’s a click as Jane turns off the light and the she feels her arms wrap around her, her lips pressing a kiss to her hair.

“I’m happy you came, Stella. I’m always happy,” Jane tells her, voice wavering a little. Jane thinks of her as a boomerang, a homing pigeon let loose into the world that has a fifty percent chance of never coming back.

“I’m happy to be here,” Stella tells her sincerely. She relaxes into Jane’s embrace, doesn’t fight it. She doesn’t want this closeness all the time, but she’s always wanted it more with Jane than with anyone else.

They are two exceptional women. And Jane Tennison is her exception.


	2. Chapter 2

_London , 1994_

One could easily have mistaken the incident room for New Year’s Eve the way her subordinates were carrying on. Champagne flowed freely into plastic cups and someone had cracked a case of canned beer. Jane looked on indulgently and sipped the cheap champagne. It wasn’t every day they caught the Northern Line Rapist. Her lip curled as she thought of him locked tight in the clink, the way he had folded when she presented him with his fingerprints on the VHS tapes. A puny weasel of a man, he had terrified so many. She’d sleep well tonight, as would most of the women in North London.

One of the DCs called out for them to take the victory lap down the pub and Jane agreed. Collar or no, she’d rather not run afoul of her gov. Jane slipped away from the party to use the ladies’ —no doubt the one in whatever pub they picked would be seven shades of disgusting. Inside, Jane was confronted with the unmistakable sight of young DC Stella Gibson, sobbing uncontrollably. Stella was banging her wrist against the corner of the lav’s broken tampon dispenser, as if in a trance. The metal had pierced the skin from the looks of it, and blood stained the cuff of Stella’s shirt and blazer.

“DC Gibson, what on earth…” She remained unresponsive, dead-eyed. Jane rushed to her, grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, hard. “Stella! Snap out of it!”

The light came back into Stella’s eyes, red with tears. They were the eyes of a wounded doe, Jane thought. Gibson grabbed her bleeding wrist, pale cheeks hot with embarrassment. “It’s nothing, ma’am.”

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Jane said, calm and business-like. The girl was in shock, she probably should have called the paramedics. But if Jane did that she’d be on the hook for murdering Stella’s career at the Met before it even began. Really, she should have seen this coming. She’d read her file, she knew who Stella Gibson’s father was, even if none of the lads in the incident room did.

Stella ran her bleeding wrist under cold water; fortunately she hadn’t cut too deeply. Jane made a makeshift bandage with a few layers of paper towel. “Thank you,” Stella said in a soft voice, a child’s voice.

“Care to tell me what happened here?”

Gibson gripped her wrist and looked away. “Sometimes I get overwhelmed.”

“If you were anyone else, I’d tell you that you have no business being in the Met. But you’re not anyone else, are you, Stella? You cracked the case for us. You knew he was videotaping them, selling the videos on the internet. You knew because your father had done the same.” Stella’s eyes flick up to meet with hers, suddenly feral, caught between fight and flight. “Stella Gibson…formerly Stella Black, daughter of DS Gibson Black from the Flying Squad. Arrested in 1986 for possession and distribution of child pornography.”

“You knew?”

“I recognized your name…your birth name…from your personnel file. I knew your dad. He worked out of my nick a few years back.” He had been a nice man, Gibson Black. Or so everyone thought. When one of their own breaks bad that way…and not for drugs or money…people don’t forget. Stella had been right to change her name.

“Why’d you request me for the task force if you knew?” There’s guilt in Stella’s voice; she’s haunted by a man whose crimes she still isn’t free of.

Jane had wondered that herself. Stella had held up fine, more than fine…until now, when she was past the point of breaking. “DCI Farnam said you were the best interviewer he had for dealing with victims. His siren, he called you.”

The tiniest flicker came back into her eyes at the praise. Stella’s eyes were as changeable as the sky and every bit as blue, every bit as beautiful. Her thick blonde hair was cut short in a boyish style that said fuck off, but it only made her eyes look even bigger and more vulnerable, like a shorn sheep.“DC Barbie” Jane had heard one of the lads snigger one day; she wished she had reprimanded him now.

Jane wrapped an arm around Stella and rubbed her shoulders. “You should go home, Stella. Do you have someone at home? A flatmate?”

Stella shook her head. “I live alone.”

Jane glanced down at Stella’s wrist, rust-colored spots of blood running through the thin paper towel. The last thing she wanted was for Stella to be alone tonight. “Tell you what. You are going to wash your face and dry your eyes. And then you’re going to meet me outside the service entrance and I’ll take you home myself.”

“That’s unnecessary, ma’am. I’m fine,” Stella said.

She was anything but fine. “I insist.”

*****

Stella tended to her wrist with iodine and gauze and with an alacrity that suggested to Jane this wasn’t the first time she had self-harmed. Jane busied herself ransacking Stella’s nearly barren kitchen cupboards until she found what she was looking for—an unopened souvenir bottle of rum brought back from some long forgotten Caribbean holiday. It wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do.

She fixed them both a drink of rum splashed with water. “It’s nearly criminal you don’t own any whiskey.”

Stella eyed her drink suspiciously and shrugged.

“Well, drink up. It’s medicinal,” Jane said, feeling the slightest bit guilty, as if she was pouring liquor down the throat of a young innocent.

Stella took a sip, wincing a bit, eyes watering at the burn. “I usually drink wine.” She took another sip, relaxing into it as the liquor took effect. “But I am beginning to understand the appeal of something stronger.” There was almost a smile around her lips as she said it.

‘You’ll have to invest in some decent whiskey if you plan to be a proper copper.”

Stella swallowed. “Do you still think I can be one?”

Jane hedged. She wasn’t going to lie to her. “You’ve certainly got the instincts of one. But...this…” she nodded at Stella’s wrist, “does it happen every time?”

“No,” Stella said, quick and decisive, too quick to lie. “This was different. The videotapes,” her eyes turned watery and wet, “it brought it all back. I found the tapes…hidden in my old toy chest when I was home from school for the Christmas holidays.”

“It was brave of you to turn him in. It was the right thing to do.” Jane finished the last of her drink, but talk of Stella’s father left her thirsting for more.

“It _was_ brave. I’m still not sure if it was right.” The longing in Stella’s voice was heartbreaking. She had loved him.

“What happened after wasn’t your fault. Your father knew what happens to coppers in prison.” _And to pedophiles_, Jane thought, but couldn’t bring herself to say.

Stella drained her drink and set it on the table with a thud. “They all looked like me. The girls in his tapes,” she said, her voice as hollow and empty as the glass.

Jane reached for Stella, opened her mouth to say something that would heal, but before she could speak, Stella’s lips pressed against hers. Stella’s lips were soft; her kiss was hard. Jane found herself absorbing it, neither responding nor pulling away. Stella broke the kiss and looked at her with lost, wild eyes. Stella was a whirlpool, and Jane felt herself being drawn in. Her lips met Stella’s, unable to resist her almost magnetic pull. She’d never considered doing this before with a woman, but suddenly her arms were full of wriggling, winsome twenty-six year old Stella Gibson and she didn’t want to stop. Jane brushed the short hairs at the back of Stella’s neck, causing Stella to moan into her mouth, her round full breasts straining at the buttons of her plain blue shirt and tantalizingly arching up to meet Jane’s own.

Jane couldn’t remember the last time anyone had tried to snog her like this. Maybe never. An annoying maiden aunt voice popped in her head, scolding her for taking advantage, hinting at how tongues would wag in the Met if it got around she’d shagged her twenty-something subordinate, her twenty-something _female _subordinate. But then Stella straddled her lap and nipped at her earlobe with her teeth and all Jane could think was _Fuck_.

Stella began to unbutton Jane’s blouse and Jane instinctively grabbed both her wrists in an effort to regain some control, causing Stella to wince when she touched the injured one. Stella stopped, and looked at her with heavy, lust-filled eyes—it was the look of a lioness stopped mid-devour. Jane squirmed a bit, wondering who was taking advantage of whom here. “You’ve done this before—with women?” Her words tumbled out awkwardly, making Jane feel every one of her forty-five years and hopelessly square.

A slow nod. “I’ve done it enough.” Stella looked back at her, baby face blushing rosy red. “I’m sorry if I came on strong….ma’am.” She shifted her weight as if to leave, and Jane rested her hands on her shoulders, pushing her back down.

“You do come on strong, but there’s nothing to be sorry for.” Jane licked her lips. Stella wasn’t the only one who liked to end an investigation with a good fuck. “If we do this…I want you to promise me something.”

Stella’s look was cautious, considering. “I’ll be discreet, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”

“That goes without saying,” Jane said with a huff. She ran her thumb over Stella’s bandaged wrist, and Stella shivered, in both pleasure and pain. “You’re not going to do this anymore. And you’re going to get some help. Is that undersood?”

Stella didn’t respond right away and for a second Jane thought she might actually tell her no. “I promise,” she said in a small voice. It said a lot about her that she didn’t make promises she thought she couldn’t keep.

“Good,” Jane said. And it was her turn to kiss Stella hard, and slide her tongue between her lips, tipping her back against the worn upholstery of the sofa. Stella reached for her and Jane melted with lust. She gave them a fifty-percent chance of never making it to the bedroom.

*****

Jane dressed silently in the grey pre-dawn light, Stella fast asleep beside her. Jane felt a twinge of guilt at leaving her. But DCIs do not return to work the next morning wearing the clothes they wore the evening before, especially after the case has wrapped. Already the night had begun to feel like an anomaly. Within a week or so, the task force will have disbanded; Stella will go back to the sex crimes unit and Jane will get assigned a new investigation and this will all be a faded, but pleasant memory.

Though Jane knew she would never forget the sight of Stella riding her hand shamelessly, the feel of her cunt hot and tight around her fingers, or the sweat-sweet taste of her skin. Never in a thousand years. It’s not because she’s gay, Jane reassured herself, quickly. Stella was special. Stella was _Stella_.

Jane bent down to kiss her forehead. She hoped, if nothing else, that Stella would keep the promise she made.

As Jane turned the knob to slip out the door, Stella stirred. Her eyes locked with Jane’s and the look in them was unfathomable. She didn’t ask Jane to stay or seemed surprised that she wishes to leave. For a moment Jane was tempted to climb back into bed beside her as that whirlpool pull of Stella’s magnetism started churning all over again. But then Stella flopped on her side, turning away from her, and settled back to sleep with an indifferent sigh.

They understood each other. Two of a kind, Jane thought. But all the way home and for weeks afterward she felt the mild sting of Stella’s rejection, like the snap of a rubber band against her wrist.


	3. Chapter 3

Stella has a luxurious lie-in that first morning in Rye. For her to sleep until half-nine is a decadence bordering on obscene. She feels the mattress shift early in the grey dawn, Jane rising for her morning yoga, most likely, but turns back over, burrowing into the soft sheets, seeking out the warm spot where Jane’s body had been like a cat napping in the sun.

When Stella wakes again, it is with the fading remnants of a bizarre dream in her head. She’s pregnant and when the child is born, it’s not a squalling newborn that the doctor thrusts into her arms, but eight-year-old Olivia Spector. Stella reaches for her journal to write it down, but of course it isn’t there. She wonders how many mornings she will wake up and swipe at the empty air before her mind accepts that it is lost to her for good. The dream lingers like a bad taste in her mouth, sour and vile.

Stella showers and dresses. The silk blouses and pencil skirts stay packed in her suitcase. It’s a costume, really, and one that has no place here. Stella retrieves dark jeans and a cashmere sweater from the drawer she keeps at Jane’s. The sweater is a soft blue—Jane loves the way it stretches across her chest and matches her eyes.

Jane’s in the kitchen furiously whipping up something in the blender. She’s still in her yoga gear, the black fabric clinging tight to her shapely bum—it’s a very nice view. Stella pours herself a cup of black coffee and sits at the table.

“Did you sleep well?” Jane shouts over the blender.

Stella nods back at her. She doesn’t want to tell Jane about her dream or what happened to her journal, at least not yet. Telling Jane about the journal will mean telling her about Spector inside her room, about Jim Burns, too. She just wants to enjoy a few moments of uncomplicated happiness, for however long they last.

Jane turns off the blender and pours the green gelatinous mixture into two glasses, placing one in front of Stella. “Well, drink up.”

“This looks like it should be sent to the lab for analysis. Another one of your concoctions?” Jane had been on something of a health kick since her retirement.

“It’s a kale and chia seed smoothie. Full of protein and antioxidants. Which you need, by the way, from the looks of you.”

Stella takes a sip and nearly chokes. “It’s like eating grass. I’ll stick to my coffee, thanks.”

Jane makes a face. “Don’t go complaining to me when you’ve got bags under your eyes and wrinkles larger than the Grand Canyon from a lifetime of take-away curry and room-service burgers and chips.”

Stella is forced to admit she had a point. Whatever Jane is doing to herself, there’s no denying it’s left her remarkably well-preserved. The tits of a thirty-five-year-old, Jane liked to brag. Stella takes another sip, lips puckering at the bitter vegetable taste.

“Good girl,” Jane comments. “Now I can give you the present I bought for you.” She slides a gold envelope across the table. Stella recognizes the logo on the front—it’s the from the spa on the high street, popular with London tourists. “Thought you deserved a little pampering.”

“Thank you, Jane.” This had become something of a tradition for them. Jane likes to fuss over her, spoil her, and Stella, sometimes to her own amazement, lets her. She’s not sure why—whether it’s because Jane has no one else to do this for or because Stella has no one who would dare do this for her. They fit that way.

“Get yourself a facial, a manicure, a massage—whatever you want.”

Stella leans back in her chair, full of unvarnished bravado. “Oh, I was rather hoping you would give me a massage.”

Jane sets aside her glass and places both hands on Stella’s shoulders, bending down for a kiss that starts out slow, but gets more heated with every pass of lips and tongue. Stella’s hands roam over Jane’s body, and it feels so good to be welcomed back into her strong, familiar arms. The spark is still there, it’s always there, no matter how many days or weeks she’s been away. They break the kiss, both breathless.

“I think that can be arranged. Give me twenty minutes?”

*

Stella lies completely nude atop Jane’s bed. She can feel the scratch of a terrycloth bath towel below her and the softness of Jane’s hands, slick with oil, above her. The dim light and the smell of the massage oil—vanilla mixed with something tropical, ylang-ylang or gardenia perhaps—lull her body into relaxation. The feel of Jane’s hands massaging her naked back, the smoothness of Jane’s thighs straddling her own make her feel something else entirely.

Jane kneads the tight muscles of her neck and shoulders, working out the knots there, knots Stella had grown so used to they had become almost a part of her in Beflast, clinging to her like barnacles.

“You’ve quite a bit of tension here. All those hours bent over a desk.”

“Mmmm. And from sleeping on a cot in at the station.”

Jane tsks audibly. “Wherever did you pick up such habits, I wonder.”

“This old guv of mine…her name escapes me…complete harridan but tits to die for.”

Jane pushes Stella’s shoulders back down. “Do you want a massage or just want to take the piss?”

Stella relaxes and chokes back a “Yes, guv” into the pillow.

Jane’s moved on to her lower back, fingertips travelling down her spinal column until they meet the muscular globes of her buttocks. The bottle of massage oil is uncorked again and Stella can feel the warm oil dripping between her cheeks. Jane runs slick hands all over her bare bottom, occasionally letting an oiled finger brush against the sensitive skin of her anus and perineum. Stella moans audibly, arching her body up to meet Jane’s hands. She can feel herself growing wetter and she longs for Jane to flip her over and fuck her.

“Not yet.” Jane says, seemingly able to read Stella’s mind.

Stella sighs in frustration and not a little pleasure as Jane massages her quadriceps, her calves, all the way down to the soles of her feet. It tickles a little, and she laughs, but it feels so good. She’d been so tense, for so long, and now Jane has her muscles uncoiling, unspooling at her lightest touch.

“Over,” Jane all but orders.

Stella is happy to comply, reclining back against the pillows in a way that is sure to emphasize her naked breasts. She enjoys taking in the sight of Jane in a short silk robe kneeling above her, the way her hardened nipples poke out against the silk; it’s clear Jane is enjoying this as much as she is.

Stella’s eyes flick over Jane’s body and she smirks. Jane’s fingertips reach out to cover Stella’s eyelids. “Closed,” she says.

Stella humors Jane and does as she asks. She very rarely gives up control in bed—and if Jane hadn’t known her since she was a wet-behind-the-ears DC she’d probably never even consider ceding it to her. But she has over the twenty years she’s known Jane Tennison, in uniform and out, come to trust her. It’s that trust she finds in Jane’s bed and nowhere else that keeps her coming back.

Slick hands roam all over her body, from neck to navel, but nowhere near the places that ache for Jane’s attention. Stella knows her nipples are rock hard and she’s aching for Jane to touch them and take them in her mouth. Fingertips brush her wet curls and suddenly she’s bucking against Jane’s lightest touch. “Jane,” she gasps. “Please.”

Jane’s fingers continue to tease her mons and labia as a warm tongue laves her right breast, circling her pert nipple. Stella can feel it harden in the cool air. “Yes,” she says, almost a hiss.

Lips close around her nipple and begin to suck, too lightly, as a slim finger probes her wetness. Her entire pelvis melts into Jane’s touch, cunt spreading open to swallow up Jane’s finger. She’s wet and ready and one finger is nowhere near enough. She grinds against Jane’s palm shamelessly, seeking out the friction she needs, so frustratingly out of reach. And then Jane’s hand is gone and she groans, impatient.

Jane chuckles softly and Stella can feel the bed shift as Jane climbs down, her bare feet slapping against the hardwood floor. Stella’s eyes flicker open slightly, curious.

“Eyes closed, Stella,” Jane reprimands.

“This is getting tiresome,” Stella says. Really, while she might be willing to concede a small amount of control, Jane was brushing up against the limits of her patience. If her eyes were open, she’d be rolling them.

“Shall I stop then?” Jane’s voice is clipped, deliberately schoolmarmish, and _Jesus_, such a turn on.

“No.”

“Good. Because I’d hate for you to miss out on what’s next.”

Stella feels Jane’s hands spread her legs apart and her belly tightens in excitement; little flickering flames of anticipation lick outward from her core. Something soft and thick pushes up against her entrance and Stella shifts her hips forward. Jane pushes the dildo in an inch and then withdraws, relentless in her teasing.

“More,” Stella pleads and this time Jane obliges, thrusting the silicone cock in deeper. It feels unfamiliar, decidedly thicker than the toys they usually play with. Stella gets an unexpected jolt of pleasure when she feels a hard ridge of silicone hit the sensitive bundle of nerves surrounding her entrance. “_Oh_,” she gasps, unable to contain herself. Jane pushes the toy farther and farther in, ridge after ridge hitting her cunt in all the right places. The toy completely stretches her open. Her nipples and clitoris swell in response, impossibly engorged. “That feels…so good,” Stella says. It’s like looking down from Cloud Nine, high with bliss.

“It’s called the Twister. I saw it and immediately thought of you.” Jane slides the toy out and in, out and in, making a continuous circuit of pleasure that runs from her cunt to her clit and back again. The ridges tease against her g-spot and tease her from the inside out. Her walls begin to ripple and clench around the dildo and all Stella can think is how much she’s needed to be fucked exactly like this.

Stella’s arching forward to meet every thrust, her own hands twisting and tweaking her nipples just the way she likes. “Jane,” she gasps.

“Yes?”

“I want to see you.”

“Open your eyes, then.”

Stella does and is treated to the sight of Jane’s lovely body bent over her, sweet, knowing smile on her lips as she fucks her into oblivion. It’s different with Jane, it’s some unquantifiable thing that goes so much deeper than the physical, and in return makes the physical so much more pleasurable. Jane knows her and she knows Jane and there’s no mask for either of them to hide behind, no role to play. Stella reaches for Jane and strokes her hair, pleading wordlessly with her eyes to fuck her harder, deeper. The ridges stretch her, keep her poised right on the edge between pleasure and pain. It feels so good, so total, and she wants to make it last but she knows she’s already so close.

“Come for me, Stella,” Jane whispers. “Let go.”

With a loud cry, she does.

*

Stella wanders through the deserted hallways of New Scotland Yard, one room blurring into the next. She’s late and she’s lost and nothing is where it’s supposed to be. It’s her father’s funeral and she should really be in her starched Met uniform with its Superintendent’s crowns, but all she has is this dark, Jezebel-red blouse, entirely inappropriate. Her father is laid out in her office, his coffin in the place where her desk should be.

Stella bends down to kiss her father goodbye. It’s not her Dad there, but Paul Spector in his place, clutching his guts, bleeding out, maniacal grin staring back at her…

She wakes with a start, naked in Jane’s arms, the daylight replaced by dull grey twilight. Her whole body tenses and her treacherous hand itches for the journal she knows isn’t there.

Her motions wake Jane, who asks, “Bad dream?”

Stella unwinds herself from the comfort of Jane’s body and nods, not trusting herself to speak the words.

“Well then, write it down,” Jane says, eminently practical as always.

Stella turns from her. “I can’t.” She slides off the bed and rummages through her roller bag to find her silk dressing gown. She can’t bear the thought of being physically and emotionally naked at the same time, even in front of Jane. “It’s in the evidence locker back in Belfast,” she says, her voice hoarse with restrained feeling. Stella climbs back into bed beside Jane, resigned to having this conversation now, her reticence dulled slightly by the endorphins of orgasm.

Jane wraps an arm around Stella’s waist and they fit together like puzzle pieces. “I see.” She’s trying hard not to slip into DSI Tennison, to treat Stella as a partner and not a suspect withholding information, but the hunger in her eyes is there all the same.

Stella takes a deep breath and gives up the ghost, the easiest confession she’s betting Jane ever had. She tells Jane everything. She tells her about Spector in her hotel room and about Jim Burns, too. She tells her about Rose Stagg and the nagging awful guilt she still feels. About poor little Olivia who loved her daddy so much and the way her heart still aches for that girl and the woman she’ll have to become. For her part, Jane just listens silently; her only comment is the weight of her hand on Stella’s back, rubbing in slow, comforting circles.

By the end of her story, Stella is crying openly, tears slipping down her face and staining the silk. “I feel ripped open, Jane.” The whole thing was a perfect storm, a personal hell crafted especially for her. She wipes at her tears with her hand. “And I know what you will say about the Met, but I’m not ready to go twenty rounds with you about my career right now. I just want…to grieve…a little. That’s all.”

Stella glances back at Jane and sees her eyes are sad and teary, too. She opens her arms wide and pulls Stella close to her chest, holding her tight. The fierceness of her embrace breaks the last of Stella’s eggshell-thin resistance, and her heart cracks open in a raw and broken sob.

Jane holds her, warm and safe, until she’s cried herself out. There’s no reprimands, no scolding. “Oh Stella,” Jane whispers into her hair, rocking in her arms like a child, “Stella, my star.”


End file.
